Most of us are still waiting... Enough With the Watch Tips Already!

OK, maybe I’m a little jealous. I did wake up at 2 AM (Central) the day the Watch went on sale to make sure I would be near the front of the line. And even though I had my watch configuration saved to my favorites on the Apple store, by the time I was finally able to get the “Place Order” button to work at 02:08, I still wasn’t able to get a watch that was in stock. My 42mm stainless steel watch with a milanese loop band won't arrive until May 13 - 27th. On one hand I’m happy Apple is doing so well selling out so quickly. On the other hand I’m pissed off about waking up in the middle of the night only to order an Watch that wouldn’t arrive for 4 - 6 weeks.

So, now I’m faced with an RSS feed filled with titles like “What I’ve Learned After One Week With the Watch”, and “8 Must-have Apps for the Watch” and “How to Navigate With the Watch”…

The list is endless and my Instapaper is filling up. While these posts are probably good reading and very informative, they all seem a bit premature given the relatively few people who actually got a watch on April 24th (the day they officially went on sale). It makes sense that tech journalists all want to be first to press with their words of wisdom, but who the hell is their audience? The vast majority of Watch pre-orders won’t ship for another couple of weeks. If the people who ordered them are still checking their order status two or three times per day (like I am), then all this press only serves to piss them off. It’s almost like these pundits have their thumbs in their ears, waving their fingers saying, “Na na na boo-boo, I got my watch and you didn’t!”

Well, I suggest we don’t torture ourselves. When we spot another post titled “Why I Love My Watch” or something like it, just quickly click the Instapaper button and stuff it into the “Read Later” pile.

Perspective

I’ll just come right out and say it. I’m 58 years old. While some people are obsessed with hiding their age, I’m kinda proud I made it this far and don’t mind bragging a little bit. Those who knew me in my youth are probably a little surprised I’m still sucking wind. Well, they don’t know my wife, I guess. Aside from being the love of my life, she’s the person that keeps me out of trouble (for the most part). And, while she’s brilliant at what she does, she’s typical of most in our age group when it comes to technology. We both learned to use a slide rule in high school and our college computer courses involved punch cards, but that’s where our technical similarity ends. She uses just enough tech to do her job while I chose technology as a profession years ago mainly because I wasn’t getting enough of it when it was just a hobby. My youngest daughter (16) has been raised in a time when the ubiquitous Internet is a simple fact of life and smartphones are harder to live without than a missing limb. Her first mobile device was an iPhone 3GS and her first computer was a Core i5, 13” MacBook Pro. Recently, I was prompted to give some thought to the differences in our perspectives regarding technology by reading the latest biography of Steve Jobs, “Becoming Steve Jobs”.

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Why the Apple Watch Will Crush

I've been hearing a lot of tech dribble about how the Watch (Sorry, non-Apple users. This translates to “Apple Watch” on a Mac.) will be a lackluster release at best and a dismal failure at worst. These "experts" site the number of Android-wear watches sold total less than one million and the Watch is dependent on an iPhone to do anything and it's starting price of $349 is too expensive and so on and so forth. These are the same "experts" who said the iPad was "just a big iPod Touch" and the iPhone was destined to fail because it lacked a physical keyboard. The point is, a complete industry exists who's sole purpose is to predict Apple's doom at every turn. They don't ever have to be right. They don't even have to site accurate data. All these journalist businesses have to do is generate clicks, and pissing in Apple's Cheerios is a proven method for success. It's just like someone at MotorWeek writing a piece about how badly a new Ford sucks. Right or wrong, it's bound to get a few million Chevy fans fired up.

So, I'll just ignore all the link baiters and counter what few semi-legitimate points I've read. First, there's the one about how few wearable (Android, Pebble, etc.) devices have sold to date.

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Where Are the Tim Cook Haters Now?

Let me start with a disclaimer: I own quite a number of shares of Apple Stock and have been trading it since 2008. The smile (smirk) on my face comes from the increasingly rapid approach of my family’s financial security.

Having said that, I’d like to take a moment to chide all the bandwagon business and tech journalists who called for Tim Cook’s head in 2013. I won’t call them out by name, but they know who they are. One of the beautiful things about the Internet is there’s no take backs! To see a list of articles from myriad journalists who got it completely wrong just Google “Fire Tim Cook”.

Go ahead.

I’ll wait.

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CalDigit Thunderbolt Station 2: The Best Thunderbolt Dock Gets Even Better!

I’ve owned the original CalDigit Thunderbolt Station since it first shipped in October of 2013. I instantly fell in love with the device with its driverless Mac connectivity and wide array of ports. Having owned a MacBook Pro since 2006, I’d resigned myself to the fact that my Dell days of sliding my Latitude into the docking station and all my peripherals working instantly were gone forever. I used to joke that my MacBook Pro looked like an octopus sitting on my desk with an external hard drive, monitor, network cable, audio out and multiple iOS devices using every available port on the machine. The CalDigit Thunderbolt station reduced the myriad connections to two, the MagSafe power and one Thunderbolt cable right next to it. The Thunderbolt Station handled everything else. Aside from the aesthetic improvement this produced, it greatly reduced the time it took to get my MacBook up and running on my desk.

Well, when CalDigit sent me an email last year announcing their imminent release of the Thunderbolt Station 2 (TS2) with Thunderbolt 2 support and the addition of two eSATA ports, I didn’t hesitate to pre-order one. It wasn’t that I particularly needed the eSATA ports or the increased speed of Thunderbolt 2 (yet), but CalDigit did cure the only beef I had with the original Thunderbolt Station. It took up a bit too much desktop space. The new TS2 is designed to stand vertically, reducing its footprint by a factor of five or six. My new MacBook Pro does have two Thunderbolt 2 ports, but the two external drives I use for backup and media storage are both USB 3 devices so I haven’t experienced any speed increase on either drive (nor did I expect to). I do plan to upgrade my external storage to Thunderbolt in the near future and CalDigit’s T3 RAID is at the top of my list. It’s there because of how well both Thunderbolt Stations have worked for me. I have to believe the same quality extends to all their products. I’ve always been skeptical of hardware vendors’ claims of “zero configuration”, but CalDigit delivers. The total setup for my MacBook Pro consisted of two steps: 1.) plug in the power and 2.) plug in the Thunderbolt cable. That’s it! Everything works and everything I plug into the Thunderbolt Station works without a single visit to the System Preferences app.

Just like its predecessor, the CalDigit Thunderbolt Station 2 delivers true “plug-n-play” configuration, rock-solid performance and reliability. I you’re looking to rid your Mac desktop of an unwieldy octopus, the TS2 is just the ticket.